


Frying Pans and Fire Extinguishers

by orphan_account



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel, Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death Pre-Story, M/M, Post Uncanny X-Men, Scott Summers has Terrible Luck, Suicide, Tactical Analysis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:03:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott Summers is a dead man. Not in the sense that he's actually dead, but in the sense that there is no logical reason for a man in his position to report his rejoining this life. It's a hell of a lot easier attempting to be a good person again when no one you love knows you exist. The problems begin when your old enemies show up and start to drag you into conflicts, because they know that they can use it too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Scott Summers was not sure how this kept happening, it was as if some Power That Was in the universe had made the Avengers fight right outside his apartment building for the third time that month. He tried to figure out which god or godlike being he had pissed off in his life to make this happen, Ares was definitely not his biggest fan, there had been very many incidents with demons and he’d stopped Nyarlathotep personally. Then he realised that asking Thor if he intended to hurt him with weather had probably been a bad idea.

It had definitely been Thor he’d pissed off.

The Asgardian had sent an electric shock though the entire block, but only this one building had stayed without power for six hours on a hot summer day.

He gazed forlornly into the fridge. Maybe some of this stuff was still edible, he’d probably digested worse in his life. That one year when he’d basically been a street kid, for example, and finding out exactly what his old orphanages director’s favourite food was had made him really not want to question what an entire 7 years’ worth of meals actually contained.

Realising that the strange gooey substance all over the chicken was in fact from a leaking milk carton, he shut the door and decided to go deal with another problem.

The fact of the matter was that even before losing his food for the week, he simply did not have enough money coming in to survive.

Those who are dead rarely do.

Sighing, Scott pulled on his coat and left his apartment.

“I should call the feds on you, Terrorist”.

Being dead unfortunately didn’t stop this. If he’d been five minutes later he could have avoided it all.

“I ended the Revolution, Robert,” he intoned, being reminded of your sordid past by people who didn’t even know you was, frankly, terrible, “it was all over the news. Everyone was shocked. It was the correct thing to do”.

There was a growling noise, of course, this wasn’t even new to Scott, people had been coming up to him since he was sixteen just to tell him how much they hated him. Meeting his younger self and seeing how easily Hank had convinced him to commit suicide gave him a very low opinion of them. Although not quite as low as opinion of himself.

He smirked at the man anyway.

“Although if you believe the graffiti I was right all along”.

“They’ll add faking your own death to your list of felonies you cold, unfeeling bastard,” followed him down the hall.

33 steps to the ground floor. Then he muttered: “Wasn’t faked”.

The man at the front desk looked up. He was a Welsh man in his 60’s, but he hadn’t changed much in the last 16. He had been entirely surprised when the lanky, entirely too thin teenager who’d lived under his roof had shown up at his door all grown up, shivering from the rain, and covered in grave mud 3 months ago.

He’d said it was the only place in this city he felt somewhat safe when his bleeding hands were bandaged.

They both knew that shouldn’t have been true, and they both knew that if it was his life must have descended into hell.

The only threat was gone, but no boy in that situation would ever willingly come back here. But conversely, even if the phase “Scott Summers is alive” were to spread to certain parts of the town, no one who had read his file (Scott was still slightly angry that his childhood had been recorded without his consent) would ever think to look there.

Cyclops was definitely the most manipulative of the three major team leaders.

Of course the man had felt that some sort of penance was needed for allowing the events of 16 years before to occur under his roof, so as long as the rent was paid even someone with that sort of checkered background could stay. Under one condition:

“If you see a cockroach use the bloody spray, boy!”

He seemed to be in a much better mood this morning. Perhaps he had placed a bet on the fight that happened the previous day. Not that Scott knew anything about people doing that.

“You really know Cap well,” came the joyous response that blew apart any claims Scott might have had of innocence, “everyone said that he’d sideline himself after three hits from that thing, but he just kept going”.

“I just make it my business to know everyone in the hero business,” which was true, as a glass cannon and leader it was tantamount to know everything about the people who were your allies and could become your enemies at a moment’s notice. “Rogers has always been trouble. He won’t leave your island when you ask nicely and he won’t leave when you blast him”.

There was a grin. “It’s okay Scooter, everyone has a bit of a Cap thing”.

“I don’t have a Cap thing,” he started walking towards the door, “have I ever told you about the time I hit him with a frying pan?”

“Only one hundred and forty seven times!”

Scott Summers held two jobs currently. One in a bar that was considered by most to be quite a bit shady, and the other selling information to those who worked in the hero business. It was surprising how easily would-be villains talked in front of a bartender and even people who had known him for years seemed unable to recognise his voice when the right technology was used.

The two jobs worked incredibly well together.

Suffice to say that if Scott Summers did not have years of combat experience by this point then he would probably be dead. As well as the fact that some events from sixteen years prior had left him a reputation as a very dangerous man, really, he wasn’t quite sure how that had all been blown out of proportion.

Therefore that night he managed to make it home without someone trying to beat his brains out with a crowbar.

Placing the pay slip between his lips, he opened the door to the hallway that his apartment was on, humming a Christmas tune despite it being July.

“Oh”.

Hoping that if he pretended that he had never opened the door then the people on the other side might not notice that he was there Scott slowly shut the door again.

Captain America. Iron Man…

“…The Hell?”

Hawkeye. That had apparently been too much to ask for.

So he was left with two options, either he run right away or he go back in and let them arrest him. The first would be the option they’d expect and the second would be the one they’d prefer.

Conclusion: Neither was an option.

Their surprise meant that whoever they had entered that building to see, it hadn’t been him. Going through the list of people on the floor he tried to figure out who it was. The man in room 304 had been taken hostage 3 days ago, they were talking to a witness and were leaving when he’d walked in.

He glanced to his right, if he did the unexpected then he might gain enough time to escape. After preparing he opened the door again.

“Hi,” he only opened the door halfway, hiding his right hand from view “this is probably a bit of a surprise, and I should say that absolutely nothing has changed. I still really hate Tony Stark”.

With that he kicked the door fully open and threw the fire extinguisher in his hands perfectly into Iron Man’s stomach knocking him back.

Immediately he flung himself down the stairs, hopping down whole stories at a time using the banisters and dashing to the front door. Rogers, apparently, only took 5 seconds to recover from that shock, as he flung himself down the middle of the steps, using his shield to soften his landing.

Scott was already out of the door by the time he first saw the red, white and blue (or red, pink and slightly darker red in his eyes) blur. Ten seconds later he realised that maybe open ground was not the best place for outrunning a super soldier.

“I don’t care what anyone says! 60mph is _not_ peak human!”

Rogers, rather unfairly Scott thought, refused outright to follow the laws of logic and slow down, instead, also very unfairly, he had apparently decided to throw his shield at Scott.

If he threw himself to the ground he would avoid a concussion but would be dragged by the scruff of his neck to wherever they were planning on questioning him.

“I could have just pretended to be a clone!” He shouted as he realised it too late, doing the unexpected thing yet again and throwing himself right into oncoming traffic the second before the shield hit.

Bearing with the honks he dashed into an alley, almost bursting with the feeling of triumph. But then something hit his leg.

_Oh fuck. Sticky Arrow_. He thought two seconds before knocking his head on the floor and passing out.


	2. Chapter 2

Scott woke up with a headache.

It wasn’t his normal waking up headache, that one he barely noticed anymore. 23 years with brain damage did that to a person.

So the first thing he noticed when he woke up was that his brain felt like someone had decided to insert a drill into there and turn it to the highest setting.

The second thing he noticed was that his hands were chained to the seat with steel gauntlets. Someone had really not wanted him to escape.

Which would have been entirely too simple… had he been wearing his costume. His visor, whichever shape it was, was connected to a switch in his gloves, if he had pressed the switch he would have been able to ricochet a shot off of that camera in the corner to simultaneously break both of the cuffs.

He hadn’t worn his costume in months, and it would be almost impossible for him to safely push up his glasses.

Not that he hadn’t done it before. He shifted awkwardly in his seat, attempting to push his glasses up off of his eyes with his shoulder.

That was the precise moment when the sound of the door opening reached his ears.

“…What the hell are you doing Summers?” Captain America’s tone of voice indicated that while he was incredibly pissed off to have walked in on this it was entirely what he had expected.

Notably he had said Summers and not Cyclops, they had been through all of this before, so it was obvious that for whatever reason Rogers’ opinion of him had dropped back down to zero.

“There was itch on my shoulder,” Scott intoned, he wasn’t going to be helpful and he might even be annoying. He glanced back to check.

Yes, Rogers was staring to the left and rubbing his forehead, definitely annoyed.

“Why am I here Captain Hypocrite?”

Steve moved forward sitting down in the chair across from Scott.

“Definitely not a clone then”.

_Was that even still an option? You have ‘peak human’ hearing, you must have heard me earlier_ , Scott kept his face completely blank.

“Were you assuming that Sinister would allow any clone of me to leave his clutches?”

Rogers’ expression indicated that he’d known from the start but had been attempting a witty quip, well he’d known Scott since he was sixteen, and if he was surprised by his utter lack of insight into human interactions then clearly he was getting his information from the wrong sources.

That information would have most likely come from Wolverine, obviously that was the wrong source.

“You didn’t answer the question,” if Scott was right he would soon be transferred to a prison where people were expected to murder him again.

“If you were taken to a hospital you would obviously attempt to escape,” he gave Scott a stern look, anticipating his response, “which I know because you were just doing it. We had you treated here”.

Scott, in a moment of uncharacteristic panic, clenched his fists, coming back to life had given him all of the memories of his younger self and there was one person who he could no longer trust to examine his unconscious body. He wished he hadn’t gotten those memories, losing his trust in one of his oldest friends hurt.

Steve took in his reaction with interest, quite obviously went through a mental check list of scientists, before making a somewhat comforting expression for some reason. “It wasn’t Beast”.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Scott lied, but for his feelings regarding the matter to be that obvious to the enemy meant that obviously he needed to work on that.

 Rogers made what he probably thought was an understanding smile, but under the circumstances it just made Scott even more annoyed.

“If you could just call the prison bus and we could just end this interaction already that would be brilliant,” he tilted his head and allowed a mocking grin, “since I probably won’t get a trial this time either”.

“You’re not going to prison, Summers,” Rogers was rubbing his forehead again. “You made it clear before… before you ended your revolution that you had repented”.

Well yes, he had regretted all of his actions, which was why he had ended things the way that he had. But having been beaten half to death in an effort to save people, he supposed that was what Rogers was talking about.

“I would prefer it if we could avoid talking about that incident,” for someone like him the only way to have any chance of redemption was for him to die, that much had been obvious, for anyone to claim otherwise was wrong and possibly even offensive for him to hear. “If you’re not going to send me to prison why am I here?”

Rogers had a very odd expression on his face, as if he had wanted to say something that was important to him but the conversation had been dragged off to somewhere where there was no context for it to be said. Good. Scott did not want to be told he was considered a hero that opinion didn’t matter anymore, the only part of that title that mattered was the helping people even if the whole world hated him.

“I want to use you,” came the belated response. “Summers, I want you to know that while I disagree with what you did you’ve created a brilliant strategy, you’re the person in the best position to take this man down. He won’t have prepared for a dead person”.

“I will never join the Avengers” the comment was entirely cold, there had been a lot of reasons for animosity and distrust in the last few years.

“I don’t want you to,” Steve was well aware that even though in the past they had bounced tactics off of each other as natural leaders neither would be comfortable in the same group. “I just want your help”.

A moment of silence passed between them before Scott groaned. “Tell me what I have to do and I’ll think about it”.

“You’re a good guy Summers,” and that was a definitely a smirk, he’d probably seen through the bluster. “Have you heard of Vulcan?”

“Yes, obviously” he stated blandly, “but I highly doubt that it’s the same one and I don’t like people taking the name”.

“And you would be right, obviously, he’s shown up in the last few months,” Scott suddenly realised how long of a time he’d actually been out of the game, for someone to rise from nothing and become a threat in such a short period of time. “Super strength, speed, endurance, thermal energy projection, generally be so much of a threat if he didn’t have comprehensive knowledge of all of our tactics and fighting styles”.

Scott knew exactly where this going already.

“If I know you,” Rogers continued, “you’ve probably picked up new tactics and training regimes since you came back to life”.

“You only barely know me,” Scott pointed out, “even if you are correct”.

There was a smile then, which was strange. “We think we know exactly where he is, I want you to go and bring him in”.

Steve leaned over and unlocked the cuffs holding him to the chair, probably left on out of worry that he would just blast Steve and run away, and proffered a file for him to take.

Scott pulled it gently from his hands and opened it, he zoomed in on several weak points in the body of text before glancing up.

Rogers had an expression on like he desperately wanted to make a comment right away.

“Before I head out,” Scott sighed, “you’d better just say whatever it is”.

“I just have one question for you” he looked oddly concerned right then. “Have you even talked to Ms. Frost since you came back?”

That was unexpected, although he had seemed to be fond of them as a couple before everything happened. “She’s at the Jean Grey School, as well as Illyana. I don’t have a way to contact either of them without the others finding out”.

“I can arrange a meeting,” that was weirdly nice of him, and Scott flashed a genuine smile.

Rogers made a very strange expression that nobody who had grown up in social isolation could understand so Scott turned around and began to leave.

“Oh and Cyclops,” strange, he’d started using the codename again. “You’ve put on weight since the last time I picked you up”.

Unfortunately it seemed like Steve had been the one to carry him here, Scott inwardly cursed his bad luck.

_Obviously I have, I was sixteen, generally people gain weight over puberty, and nobody asked you to pick me up either time that you did it._

Five minutes after he left that room he received a text from Tony Stark telling him to visit him. He supposed he should have expected someone to rifle through his phone. Make sure he wasn’t contacting anyone that he shouldn’t.

If Scott was a man for pranks he would have changed every name in the phone to that of a known super villain in case they tried it again.

* * *

 

_Okay,_ Scott noted as he picked up his maroon and red lined costume, _this is in the room of heroes. I would have thought the Avengers would be better at filing things._

A note on the suit stated “The Mask of this costume has been burned”.

What was so bad about his X-Mask?

Personally he thought the mask had perfectly complimented both his face and the revolution.

Just like he was certain that the Eric the Red costume had been exactly what male villains wore all the time.

Unfortunately the burning of the mask left him with absolutely no visor, and the box very unfortunately gave no clues as to where else he might be able to find one that he was certain was safe and functional.

Should he trust Stark?

By every logical examining of the question, he should not. This was the man who had torn apart his entire life by putting a cosmic force inside his body. The reason he had decided to begin the revolution in the first place. If he were to stretch it even further he was the reason why six months prior and immediately following Scott’s saving of 100,000 people’s lives he had stood atop a two story building and just leaned forward.

He still wasn’t sure why two people had tried to stop that, by all accounts the world was much better without him in it. He knew that for certain, that was one facet of coming back from the dead.

His younger self’s memories came flooding in and he winced, dropping the costume.

On the other hand if Stark had a visor waiting for him he would be about 50% less likely to die. He wondered just how pissed off they’d be if he didn’t come back.

Besides if it went badly he was fairly certain that out of the two of them he was better at hand to hand combat.

So he decided to head down there.

Slowly he opened the door to Stark’s lab.

“You hit me with a fire extinguisher,” came the immediate complaint, “oh, and you’re late Scotty”.

Scott wasn’t quite sure why he’d decided that the name was okay, it was probably mocking, but he was suddenly reminded that only a few people had ever called him that and three of them were people that he’d rather not remember.

So he gave Stark a level look and a very awkward silence spread between them before Stark coughed.

“I made you a new visor. It has night vision, because I’m not sure how you can walk around wearing sunglasses at night”.

Training. Everything was training. Scott wasn’t quite sure why people didn’t get that no matter how many times it was said. That said it could lead to the awkward question of ‘what about before you joined the X-Men?’ which he didn’t want to think about, let alone discuss with an Avenger.

Stark handed him the visor, apparently realising that he was not going to get an answer to that.

Scott, noticing what appeared to be a very useful item behind him, slipped it quietly into his pocket, since he definitely thought that he needed at least some more protection.

Before he left Scott mumbled. “Beast added night vision in the third edition,” right after Scott had run into a tree incidentally.

* * *

 

Hawkeye was waiting for him on the flight deck. Scott wasn’t sure if it was actually called the flight deck, but he wasn’t going to learn what the names in this place were.

Why was Hawkeye waiting for him on the flight deck?

“Well it’s mostly because we’re not stupid enough to trust you with the planes, but otherwise I’m backup”.

Ah, so they were back to the mocking thing. It had been a while. Mostly it had just been threats to send him the same way as Harold Godwinson.

Of course they wouldn’t trust him with a plane, Scott highly doubted that they would have a plane that indicated changes using the number of lights instead of the colour.

“Just remember that we need to go to Alaska,” he said blandly. “I was born there so if I see parrots I’ll know instantly that you got lost”.

“You know, just because you don’t have a target on your face anymore doesn’t mean I can’t still hit it”.

Scott moved around him so as to enter the plane.

“Nice ass, Summers”.

Of course this would derail into coarse humour. Of course it would.

Turning around he gave the exact same smirk he gave when messing with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents the year before.

“Remember: there shouldn’t be any penguins either”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hawkeye and Cyclops do not get along. They really do not. Or at least Hawkeye does not get along with Cyclops. Most of their canon interactions devolve into insults. I think it might just be a personality thing, or possibly because Scott trusted Magneto that one time.  
> Also it's been threatened that Scott isn't planning to live past the end of the revolution so in this story... he doesn't. I won't say who the two people who tried to stop him were but you can probably guess at least one of them.  
> Young Cyclops had little reason to trust anyone when coming to the future, and a lot of characters treated him badly because of his older self, so gaining his younger self's memories is just causing Scott a lot of problems. However he's much, much better around Bruce Banner now, because of him talking the kid out of suicide. That will be an interesting scene to write.


	3. Chapter 3

A 400°C beam of pure heat missed Scott’s ear by millimetres. He was lucky that the person he was fighting was essentially a mighty glacier, although convection meant that the left side of his head was now assaulting him with extreme pain had he been able to fire off anything close to Scott’s own hypersonic beams there would quite obviously be a rather large hole where his face had been a few moments earlier.

As it was the man was throwing thermal energy around at about the speed of a car, his physical speed was most likely far higher, which would be why he had been a threat in the first place.

Scott had attacked him at close range from above, jumping through an open window on the roof and landing on his head incidentally, which had turned out to be below his level of durability, although Scott hadn’t really expected that in the first place.

The melee attack had in fact not been an attempt to beat the man in one hit. Cyclops had a reputation after all, an almost entirely unjustified reputation but still, most people believed that he was only a ranged fighter, and that was the kind way of putting it, most people thought he was weak and completely worthless.

Even though he had been capable of completely outclassing six heavier people with his sense of sight unavailable, he highly doubted that that had ended up in any file about him.

Scott was running on the assumption that the fact that he was legally dead and most of the so called knowledge about his fighting style would lead the man to believe that he was in fact a shapeshifter, allowing him to use his optic blasts when it was expected. If he led with a blast and the enemy immediately brought out something that could counter it he would be screwed.

He threw himself to the floor five seconds before another blast whistled where his head had been and rushed towards the man.

The air started to become hazier as a wall of heat popped up between them, if he guessed it would be enough to melt any bullets that were fired at him as they passed through.

He retreated, assessing the situation.

This was precisely what he’d been after.

The man had been fooled and was now running a stratagem for a close ranged fighter.

Scott brought his hand up to his visor.

A concussive blast moving at escape velocity shot out and just a second later smashed into the thermokinetic’s shoulder.

The wall of heat flickered out of existence just for a second.

The corners of Scott’s mouth quirked up in a smirk, a plan starting to take form in his head. “Are you immune to your own heat?”

As the man who would certainly not be referred to as Vulcan got back to his feet a second blast hit him in the stomach pushing him back slightly and winding him.

A second later he found himself being dragged forward by his costume.

A wire was being reeled back in, forcing him to go through his heat.

Scott stared at the man impassively as he pressed a button on the wrist mounted grappling hook (which, now that he thought about it was probably confiscated), after a few seconds of surprise and pain, the other man had crumpled to the floor.

Scott started walking towards the villain as he unhooked a pair of handcuffs from behind him, the same kind that had been used against him during the Cadre K incident in fact.

He felt heat on the back of his neck.

Behind him were four more spots of thermal energy, ready to be turned into beams, was it possible that this was an unconscious defence?

He threw himself out of the way, handily dodging three of the beams but receiving the fourth in the shoulder.

He cried out accidently as he landed on his now wounded shoulder. The smell of burnt flesh hit his nose.

From the corner of his vision Scott saw an arrow fly through the air.

* * *

 

“You shut up,” Scott muttered from his seat in the plane, not looking at Barton at all.

“I saved your ass,” came from the man beside him, undoubtedly smirking, Scott wondered vaguely if he would be stopped if he attempted to parachute out.

Logically, he supposed that he was a leader, he was used to using a team of high powered mutants with varying abilities to remove any problems. Even during his, never to be revealed to anyone, days as a space pirate he had managed to avoid facing a dangerous superhuman solo most of the time. There was one other important fact.

“After he was down,” he intoned

There was a sneer from next to him. “I still saved your ass”.

Scott looked out the window and hummed for a minute.

Then another thought hit him and he looked back with a smirk.

“Fire Extinguisher Arrows?”

* * *

 

It couldn’t really be said that Steve Rogers was proud.

In fact he was rubbing between his eyes again in the way that indicated that he was most annoyed. Scott wasn’t sure that he quite deserved that reaction.

“Will you stop fiddling with that bandage?”

Scott had just been fixing it, it had been slightly wonky.

“It’s fine now, it’s fine”.

Over the years most of the X-Men had come to the conclusion that if Scott said that regarding himself, then whatever was wrong was in fact not fine and, most likely, Scott would continue to try to fix the thing.

Steve Rogers was not an X-Man.

Thus Steve Rogers had no clue about this little fact.

“It feels strange not having Richards here,” Scott tried to say conversationally. Referring to the failed attempts at leader meetings that they had tried to hold a few years previously.

“I was under the impression that you never paid attention during those,” which was true, given how they would devolve to useless bickering within the first few minutes Scott had decided that it was best for him to try and get some work done during them.

“Maybe if you and Richards didn’t start all those arguments about ethics,” Scott waved his hand dismissively.

Rogers made a comment that sounded like “You started just as many of those fights,” but Scott had returned to fiddling with the bandage by that point.

Apparently this was very distressing for Rogers as he immediately gripped Scott’s hand and pulled it away from the wound.

“He had an annoying trick,” Scott explained.

“Yes,” Rogers stated, “Barton told me, he wouldn’t stop grinning”.

Scott made a disgruntled noise, attempting to pull his hand out of the strong grip, as he felt like the bandage was slipping.

Rogers sighed, deciding that he would clearly need to intervene, and set to fixing the bandage himself.

After what Scott regarded as the single most awkward series of moments of his life, up to and including his entire time at the orphanage, Rogers finally pulled away. “Is that okay?”

“Fine, I’m fine now”.

As any member of the X-Men will tell you, when Scott Summers says that it means ‘I am in great pain and probably about to collapse from exhaustion’.


	4. Chapter 4

Scott awoke to the sound of loud clattering.  
Yawning, he rolled over. He really wished his neighbours wouldn’t be so loud at six in the morning.  
What felt like ages passed and he cracked open an eye, 6:01, he grumbled slightly.  
His neighbours were being so loud it sounded like they were…  
They were in his own apartment.  
15 seconds later he was out of bed and in the kitchen.  
He pulled a mop out of its bucket and wielded it like a pole arm, sliding into the living room silently. Seeing the intruder getting up from the floor, which was covered in broken glass from he forced entry, he brought the mop down on his head.  
“Why do you insist on trying to hit me with household objects?” Came a muffled complaint, he’d clearly managed to dodge the pole by a few millimetres.  
“Why does every single person I know insist on breaking into other people’s apartments?” Scott grumbled, removing the mop from Rogers’ sodden face. “Were you aware that you needed stitches?”  
“Amazingly not,” and wow, sarcasm was strange coming out of his mouth.  
“Why are you here, Rogers?” Scott was wondering if he could get away with pushing him back out of the window and going back to bed.  
“I was in the neighbourhood,” which clearly meant in a fight, “I needed help and you were the closest allied person. Hey, where are you going?”  
Scott, against his better judgement, was not going back to bed. Grumbling again he went back to the kitchen and pulled out a box.  
“It’ll need to be disinfected first,” he sat down in a chair, opening the box.  
Slowly he worked on stitching up the wound (“Should be done in a hospital, Rogers”), vaguely impressed by the lack of visible signs of pain, although he supposed that that could be the stupid level of bravery only shown by those who threw themselves out of planes without parachutes.  
“It isn’t hurting is it?” He said as he started on the final stitch, the close proximity making him wonder exactly what colour Rogers’ eyes were. “Red,” he told himself firmly to remove those thoughts from his mind, before grunting “Don’t furrow your brow,” which was probably unfair on Rogers since people generally refrained from saying colours out loud.  
When the final stitch was completely, Rogers stood up, leaving Scott complaining about not being able to examine his handiwork.  
He had moved over to the mantelpiece, picking up the picture that had been directly in front of him the entire time.  
“Is this you as a kid?” He asked, probably amazed that a young Scott had been capable of smiling. He turned it around to show him. “This was your family?”  
The Bogarts? He’d put that up as a memorial, having taken a guess of what had happened to them hours after he’d found out about Sinister.  
“No,” he stared at the photo, it was amazing how happy he looked then, later that Summer things had just gone to hell. “Can we not talk about that?” This came out as pleading.  
Rogers apparently being enough of a stand up guy to immediately drop the subject, moved on to the next photo along. This one was so much worse.  
“Who’s the guy?”  
Scott stared at the photo, tried to remember why he had put it up, if he was honest it was because the last time he’d visited Morocco to see Achmed had probably been the last time he’d enjoyed himself.  
His face heated up impressively, he thought that it must be the same colour as his glasses. “He’s a friend,” he stuttered out as Rogers appeared to be amused his suddenly red face. “He’s married!” That just made it sound so much worse.  
“Boyfriend?”  
Scott got an incredible urge to push him out of the door just then. “Ex-Boyfriend,” he ground out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's read Search for Cyclops you'll understand. I mean Scott and Achmed clearly, CLEARLY had something going on when Scott was on that boat in the beginning. As for the Bogarts... reading Scott's backstory is not for the faint of heart, really not, but suffice to say it's heavily implied that every person who attempted to adopt Scott got murdered. This is kind of a short side story because essays and exams are soon.


	5. Chapter 5

_Frankly this time period was terrible._

_Other than meeting your father you can’t think of a single reason why being brought here was good for you, and that was hardly the point of the exercise._

_Fitting since it was a punishment._

_You’re not even sure why you needed to be punished any more. You’ve met your older self and he’s a hell of a lot better than the man who brought you here is. He doesn’t roughly grab you and yell at you and isolate you and try to convince you to commit suicide._

_Vaguely you wander if the isolation was the actions of a man who knew about the orphanage and wanted to hurt you as much as possible._

_By contrast your older self seems to genuinely like you, he helps you, he rescues you, and he gives you (admittedly terrible) advice._

_Your older self seems to have become slightly like an older brother at this point, you’ve almost started forgetting about the Professor. There had to be some other kind of explanation, the possession argument seems to be the most likely explanation._

_He doesn’t seem the type to have such little regard for human life._

_Which doesn’t explain this situation._

_Both of you are on top of the building. He is standing outside the railing. You grip the bar tightly. Begging for him to come down._

_“It’s a long way down,” you say, trying to sound calm, but you are the furthest thing from that right now._

_“You shouldn’t care,” comes the response._

_But damn it, you do, he’s the first adult you’ve been certain has been fond of you since you were seven years old. He’s a good man, no matter what Hank McCoy tried to tell you._

_“I messed up,” came the response, “gimme the chance and I’ll do it again,”_

_Your eyes widen in shock. He’s quoting. He’s quoting from the incident at the orphanage 4 years ago. Why? Why would he do that? Is this supposed to be some kind of penance?_

_You’re so shocked that a flashback to that terrible time takes you in momentarily and you see him lean forward. Then gravity takes over._

_A sickening thud rings out from below._

_“You’re on. Take my hand,” you finally manage, even though it’s much too late._

_Down below blood is starting to spread._

_It dawns on you that the reason he did that was to stop you from grabbing his hand, he might not have ever made it to 200lbs but he’d have dragged you over the edge as well for sure_

_Things just keep slipping through your fingers._

* * *

 

The older version of Scott Summers jolted awake. This was getting worse. The realignment of the timelines was taking its toll on him, and to make matters worse he had no idea if this was normal. He couldn’t ever talk to Hank or Bobby again, that much he knew. He’d burned all of his bridges with the X-Men.

The rushes of his younger self's memories were becoming more frequent, and every time they took place he started to feel disoriented, out of place with the world. It took him at least half an hour every day to sort out which Scott Summers' memories belonged to which Scott Summers.

He glanced at the clock: 0500 and someone was already being annoyingly chirpy in the other room.

Scott’s head was hurting, he’d lived most of his life with brain damage so he expected this every morning, but today was especially bad.

Silently he moved to the kitchen pouring two cups of coffee and grabbing three tablets from a box.

“Should you really be taking that many?” A voice came from the door.

Scott steadfastly ignored the voice until all of the tablets were down his throat.

Rogers sighed and moved to pick up one of the cups of coffee.

“Those are both mine,” Scott grunted, leaving the room with both cups while grumbling something about freeloaders making their own coffee.

Rogers had revealed that he had needed somewhere to stay just after Scott had patched up his eyebrow, and had been staying in the flat for three days. Despite the fact that Scott acted grumpy about this he didn't actually mind that much, for some reason he actually quite enjoyed the company, and when Rogers left for short periods, presumably to deal with whatever had landed him in this mess, the apartment actually felt quite… empty.

Scott wasn’t really sure why, he’d never needed much human company before, but he supposed that being alone for so long had actually left him quite lonely.

He placed the two mugs of coffee on the table and sat down on the chair, rubbing his head.

Okay so the space adventure wasn't him, he knew that objectively, but why did those images of his father seem years old when they'd only popped up three months ago, the days at the New Xavier School all swirled into one, he never touched his younger self's memories of Logan's school and was sincerely thinking about shoving them in the heavily locked mental room that contained all of his childhood memories. The memories of how much Hank hated him now popped up frequently to haunt him.

Worst of all was the memory of when he jumped, even thinking about it brought back a flood of his younger self's despair.

Shaking as the emotions overwhelmed him, he brought the first mug of coffee to his lips.

"I don't think that's healthy," came from the door, "drinking large amounts of caffeine," Scott was fairly certain that that was hypocrisy, given that he was standing there with his own mug now, but refrained from saying so out loud.

Rogers looked concerned, although Scott was fairly certain that that was just because of just how shitty he looked today.

"Fine," he mumbled into his drink. "I'm perfectly fine," there was no way he could tell the older man, it would be impossible to explain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah sorry, another short chapter during the end of term period. Mainly I wrote this today because there were a lot of sources of stress for me today and I needed an outlet. This chapter is probably the first appearance of the time displaced 16 year old Scott Summers, although by the time the fic takes place he's been back in the past for months.


	6. Chapter 6

It had just been a five second appearance on the news but when one had eyes as good as his there was no way that it wouldn’t be noticed. Especially not when you’d known someone for over a decade, when someone had been your _best friend_ for most of that time.

If Scott was hiding from the X-Men after coming back to life then they needed to know what he was up to. Had he returned to being a revolutionary as if he had learned nothing? Was he planning something big? Had he just lost his memories like that time when he showed up in Egypt?

But there was no way to prove that it was him, the image, frankly, hadn’t blown up well, and had become a grainy image of a man with brown hair and red sunglasses.

Hank had given him a look and made a comment about there having to be multiple men out there in New York who had brown hair and were 6 foot 3, even though the sunglasses, frankly, were a fashion faux pas.

Hank, apparently, had forgotten all of the years that he’d been friends with Scott to even think about saying the things he did now.

So Warren had ended up hiring a private detective. He didn’t like to believe that Scott had returned to his ways before, but he had to be sure. The memories of his younger self may have kept popping up to indicate that Scott Summers had not been all that bad, but it wasn’t as if he could have seen all of the events, and the others were too vitriolic to be wrong about everything.

For the last two months or so there had been a van stationed outside the apartment complex Scott had lived in, due to which the strange fact that Scott simply had not noticed had become apparent, Warren was starting to think that he had indeed lost his memories.

Then a few weeks prior a few members of the Avengers had shown up and things had gotten strange.

Steve Rogers had visited a few times since then and that was when it clicked for Warren that he should meet Scott and see for himself.

He did have a balcony outside his apartment.

* * *

 

Scott sighed as he walked back home, he needed coffee or sleep, whichever was easier.

Passing by the van that he was fairly certain was watching his next door neighbour, who was having a rather loud affair with multiple people, he rested his forehead on the front door.

Rogers had left, which was good, he could have time in his own home without thinking about how lonely he was, or had been for the longest time, ten years maybe, he wasn’t sure.

Sighing again he pushed the door open and went upstairs, flopping down on his bed.

He immediately becomes aware that he is not alone in his apartment, or even if the man’s not exactly _in_ his apartment Scott still has to wonder who exactly stands on another person’s balcony staring at them.

“…The Hell?” He muttered.

One second later he has jumped off of the bed and has back himself against the wall, oh hell, he’s been found… again, he she should say.

Warren Worthington III decides, rather unhelpfully, to knock on the glass just then, asking to be let in.

Scott gives him the most scathing look he can muster and Warren, smiling hopefully now, taps the glass again.

Unfortunately he accidentally ended up in a routine from their youths.

Scott keeps his expression the same and crosses his arms. To which Warren gazes at him with a disappointed look in his eyes but doesn’t actually make to leave.

Because he always was annoying like that.

Scott decided right then that he needed to cross the room, stare Angel right in the eyes… then draw the curtain.

Indignant squawks filled the room as Scott settled down in bed.

* * *

 

Ten minutes later Scott grumpily poured a mug of coffee and sat down on the couch while Warren kept complaining in his general direction.

Since Warren had immediately gone for the most comfortable chair in the room like a bee goes after pollen Scott was not gracing him by paying attention to the rant.

He was also making a note of three people he was going to interrogate thoroughly over the fact that he had apparently been sold out.

“Why are you here Warren?” He said, after the rant had apparently finally stopped.

There was a splutter before his reply came. “ _Why am I here_? Try why are you not telling anyone you’re alive, you absolute asshole?”

Scott felt that this was an unfair question from one of the group that regularly declared that they didn’t want him in their lives. So he said so.

“It would have been nice to have been given the choice,” came his response, and what sense did that make logically, they had told him their choice and he had followed their decision for the most part, it wasn’t his fault they kept breaking into his bedroom while he was sleeping.

“Most people,” he informed Warren, “would call ahead, or at least give the warning of ringing the doorbell before showing their face”.

“And run the risk of having you hiding, Summers?” Warren was being obnoxiously astute, frankly it was the most annoying state that he had. “Why the hell did you do it, Scotty?” He said after a pause.

“I closed the curtain because I was hoping you would leave”.

Angel examined his face for a second, trying to tell if he was joking or not. Deciding that he had never known Scott Summers to have a sense of humour he continued. “Why did you jump?”

That sounded oddly concerned and there was a moment where Scott thought through all of the reasons he’d done it. It was impossible for him to redeem himself even if he had been cleared of all charges, his entire family hated him, he was just so tired. “The world doesn’t exactly have a place for me in it, it never would have,” that was true, even if people had stopped trying to kill them, the fact of the matter was that there wasn’t a place for a brain damaged orphan with an incredibly spotty memory, it had just taken him a few years to relearn that.

Warren was silent for a second before sighing. “What are you doing Scotty? Why did you come back?”

Scott actually didn’t know, he had no idea who had brought him back, or for what purpose, so he didn’t answer that question. “I’m not running a revolution. Just- just trust me on that, okay”.

They sat in silence for a moment or two until his former best friend stood up and strode out onto the balcony. A few seconds later his wings took him out into the city.

Scott suddenly felt even more alone than he had before.

* * *

 

It took him at least half an hour to move out of the position he’d been sat in for the duration of the conversation, he was unable to stop thinking about it. He’d been an idiot. Why had he asked Warren to trust him? None of the original 5 X-Men would trust him, they all outright hated him.

Groaning, and preparing himself for a bunch of people waking him up tomorrow by asking him _why he hadn’t stayed dead, Scott Summers do you do these things because you want to hurt us?_ Scott decided to try and see if he could get to bed without being watched.

Standing up he finally noticed a number on his answer phone. Groaning again he slammed his fist down on the button and Roger’s voice came out.

_“Summers we need your help for a bit, just, where the hell are you? This is important. Goddamn it just- just call back when you get this”._

Apparently he was not allowed to sleep, Scott picked up the phone, then realising that he also had an important thing to talk to Rogers about, punched in the number he had been given.

“Who the hell are you telling about me?” Was, by most people’s standards, not a polite way of starting a conversation. But Scott felt that it was necessary.


	7. Chapter 7

“Angel.” Was the first thing that Scott said when someone answered the phone.  
There was a long stretch of silence before the person at the other end of the phone spoke up. “From the tone of your voice I’m guessing that isn’t a misplaced pet name.”  
Scott, not being particularly in the mood for this, ground out. “Why. Was. Warren. Worthington. In. My. Home?”  
“Because he’s a member of the Hellfire Club and even if he isn’t sending out private investigators personally, someone in that club is going to have a vested interest in knowing everything,” that was a decidedly quick answer. “I’ve met the man once, Summers. Fifteen years ago, we don’t meet up for coffee and discuss his boyfriends.”  
“Clearly you need some better security protocols in place.”  
“You mean you need better security protocols,” comes the retort. “You’re the guy who’s living out in the open. We could give you a room in lockup if you really wanted.”  
He gets a very tightly wound reply. “Forgive me for not trusting any prison that you would put me in. They do have an odd tendency to induce seizures in the prisoners, which probably breaks a few human rights laws by the way.”  
A sigh from the other at that is basically a victory, so a smug smile begins to cross his face.  
“Can you meet me for coffee, Summers,” the voice on the other side of the phone says. “It’s best that I talk to you in person.”

The address that he’s given ends up being a small, privately run place in the middle of Brooklyn, but then he should have guessed that Captain America was into supporting small, American businesses.  
He ends up tugging on Rogers sleeve in the queue in order to get his attention, which probably would not look good if the paparazzi was around, so he pulls down his cap even further.  
Steve gives one glance back before his lip quirks down, Scott, never having been one for translating facial expressions, immediately lets go.  
There might have been a moment where the other man’s hand moves to stop it but it only lasts for a second.  
Momentarily they arrive in front of the counter and Scott rattles off an order with entirely too much syrup in it to really be called coffee. But he doesn’t really pay attention to Rogers’ horrified face, because he isn’t the one paying, so he is allowed to indulge a secret sweet tooth.  
“I hope you realize that that is completely disgusting,” the grumbled complaints come from behind him when they move away from the counter. He seems to be moving in a completely unacceptable direction.  
“Not the window seat.”  
The Captain sits down, pretending not to hear and clearly intent on being as annoying as possible in revenge.  
“Not the window seat,” Scott says again a bit more forcefully, only to get the look in return. The look that clearly states that Reed Richards would be less trouble than this. For some reason Scott finds that very insulting.  
Making sure his cap does in fact cover his face, Scott sits down. “Just so you know, if Stark starts complaining to you because the papers are questioning your new mystery date? Not my fault.”  
A hand reaches out and pulls it off of his head, throwing it onto the seat next to the Captain.  
“Wearing hats indoors is rude,” comes the clipped explanation.  
“Well some people would say that wearing sunglasses indoors is rude but I’m fairly certain that you would rather that I didn’t…”  
“You used to call me, sir,” he gets interrupted and hey, wait Cap? Isn’t that exactly the kind of statement that’s going to be misconstrued. “You used to be so much easier to deal with as a teenager, what happened?”  
“Well, you didn’t use to invade peoples islands back then. Although you did pick people up, which isn’t exactly the best way to introduce yourself to people and also means that you have no right to talk about what is and isn’t rude.”  
A moment of silence passes between them before Rogers sighs and pulls out a file from his backpack. “I want you to go to Seattle with me.”  
Scott only barely manages to pull the file over to his own side of the table before the man continues.  
“Clearly these are some of your idiots, even if they weren’t your students you left the rest of us with a mutant revolution to deal with. Thank you for starting that by the way.”  
“Dallas.” Scott says, looking at some of the photos. “And… Callie, she died. When did she come back?”  
“You know the people in this?” Comes the incredulous tone, furrowed eyebrows, and the pinched nose that so well projected his annoyance.  
“Maxwell might be somewhere around… he’s in the crowd, picking someone’s pocket.”  
Rogers has his head in his hands, as if he already knows exactly where this is going.  
“Well. It looks to me like this is an old Corsairs squad reunion, and if I had to guess, the Cuckoos are definitely the masterminds.”  
“So what you’re saying,” he looks pissed, really pissed. “Is that the group of people busting into government buildings,” shit, this is going to be bad, “destroying government paperwork,” if he moves for the door he’s definitely going down, “and attacking the police who hunt mutants, are your squad, who you trained personally and who you probably had a lot of influence over.”  
“Wait, how do you know they’re my team?”  
“You named them after your **father**!” Oh no, raised voice, people started turning to look.  
“But if I remember correctly you’ve never actually met my father. The Starjammers met the Avengers when they tried to kill one of your teammates but…” yes, clearly that had been the wrong thing to mention, Rogers was grumbling about how terrible the entire Summers clan was, which was very unfair, because he hadn’t even met Scott’s grandparents.  
“Come on,” Scott says, touching the other man’s shoulder, “you wanted me to go talk to my kids.”  
“Not just talk to,” comes a grunt, “you’re going to tell them to stop, and I’m going to be in the room to make sure you don’t actually make things worse.”  
Basically what that translated to was ‘I don’t trust you not to run off to Canada and make another revolutionary group, if I see even one sign of uncooperative behaviour you are going to be right back in that mutation suppressing, seizure inducing prison’ and he wondered why Scott was always on the defensive around him.


	8. Chapter 8

Well this plane flight was filled with an awkward silence.

Scott wasn’t really sure what to say to the other, he opened his mouth, realised that the topic he brought up was related to Euler, then shut it again. He wasn’t going to do that. Given the time his Kama Sutra topic had been mistaken for something about yoga, it would be just his luck if an innocuous conversation was taken as something sexual.

He sighs, tapping the panel in front of him, the man next to him stiffens.

“Summers…” comes the warning grunt. He wasn’t even touching any buttons, and besides, Scott never felt quite as safe in a plane piloted by someone else as he did in one piloted by himself. Perhaps it was the old trauma. But he would have felt much more comfortable in a plane decked out for him, which indicated by number of lights rather than color, just so that he was certain that Steve wasn’t about to send them crashing down in Nebraska.

Nebraska would be more of a problem than the crashing.

He pulls his hands back anyway, before speaking the phrase that every mutant probably wants him to.

“They’re not wrong, you know.”

A look gets sent his way, clearly stating that this was domestic terrorism in Rogers’ eyes. Oh, right, just a reminder that he shouldn’t find out about Scott’s past, well the really far in the past, past. Before he joined the X-Men. Although he didn’t think it was common knowledge, Jennifer Walters was the only one who did know, and that had been because of a strange incident involving necromancy.

“You’re a super soldier, so you wouldn’t have experienced it, but for us our manifestation is terrifying, the mobs start coming, the police won’t help and are probably sharpening their own pitchforks, there’s probably hundreds of abusive criminals waiting to take advantage, and now because of Stark they’re required to give their identities to the same government that keeps making giant robots to kill us. Did you think that I started the revolution because prison wasn’t comfy?”

“We’re bringing them in.” It was curt and offered absolutely no argument and certainly no ‘also the prison you put me in was filled with humans who wanted to kill people like me, and the guards would set off a collar that induced epileptic fits when I thought back and _did you know?_ Did you intend for me to die in prison?’

Scott thought that Steve might be bringing them in but that he could just ‘accidentally’ let them go during a struggle. At least while Rogers wasn’t looking.

He felt eyes on him from across the room and felt especially glad that the other man wasn’t a telepath.

* * *

 

It was another hour when the plane touched down in a field in Washington, the dark was already beginning to creep over the clearing, and Scott found himself being dragged by his arm down into a small town, which was vaguely better than being dragged by his hood, but still felt like he wasn’t being trusted to move towards a target without straying.

Eventually they stopped in front of a small cottage at the outskirts of the town. It looked so normal that Scott almost couldn’t believe that it was there, waiting for one of Strange’s spells to dissipate and leave a giant Stark Tower behind.

As if sensing the train of thought that was going on next to him Rogers spoke softly. “We bought up a couple of houses during the 50 State Initiative, just in case one of the teams needed support if a mission became too much for them.”

“You never introduced me to the Alaska Initiative,” Scott commented, almost impossible to hear, at least not for someone whose hearing isn’t about as ‘peak human’ as his 60mph running speed.

“I am not introducing you to the Alaska Initiative after that time when you asked the head of the Nebraska Initiative why Child Protective Services was so bad in his state.”

There’s a moment of pause, because yeah that had happened, and Scott had gotten into a lot of trouble because of it. Although it was bad, they didn’t even go look at an orphanage after one of the kids committed suicide, that was textbook bad.

Without another word Scott moved towards the door and tried the lock, it was unlikely, but he wanted to be out of that particular social interaction as quickly as possible.

When the door inevitably did not open at his attempts, Scott found himself being pressed between the door and a very warm, very muscular body, and shit, Scott couldn’t tell which was worse, his stupid crushes on Namor and Nemesis or this. Probably this.

His body heated up, which was not good, even though his skin was the opposite of pale, his blushes tended to be full body and there was a threat that it would get noticed.

The key clicked in the lock ahead of them and Rogers pulled back, giving Scott a light shove so that he was inside the house, then stepped in after him.

“We need to talk; I want to know what your students can do, I’m not going into what could turn into a fight without some basic strategy,” Scott found himself being dragged towards the kitchen, this time by his hood again, he could never catch a break with this.

* * *

 

At some point the next morning Scott found himself curled up on the couch, pressed against a warm, hard body, it took him a moment to remember exactly why he was here, last night neither of them bad exactly had the energy to themselves up the stairs and onto proper beds, since that would require putting sheets on them, and they had spent much longer on that strategy meeting than he had thought they were going to.

Of course that didn’t explain why he was on the couch, because he had fallen asleep curled up in the arm chair, it hadn’t exactly been comfortable, but he had also been too shattered to care.

A hand brushed through his hair, making him flick his eyes upwards, actually, hadn’t his hair been being fluffed up for a while, it hadn’t seemed that important at first.

“Morning?” He murmured at the man, still too sleepy to complain about that particular action but the hand was quickly pulled back anyway.

A twinge pulled in his chest at the realisation that the action had probably only been because he resembled his younger version, who was, of course, adorable, and not at all encumbered by the dickishness and just general emotionlessness of the older version, but he didn’t like feeling jealous of his younger self, the kid had had a rough life and he deserved to be happy. There was just a slight desire to have someone say something positive about him that didn’t involve the phrase ‘well, he used to be a sweet kid, and I guess being a leader just puts you through a lot of shit, no one can stay sweet through that’.

“I should go take a shower,” Scott said quietly, definitely taking the first way out that he could think of, plus, it would give him a good opportunity to smack himself a bit for having those thoughts. Before the other could even get a word out he was already half way up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I was mostly inspired to continue this because of the Raw Deal Scott is going to be getting in Death of X, he deserves a good, non-character assassinationy story honestly. I'm gonna try and make sure he gets at least one happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> If had the idea of Scott attempting to drag himself out from the mud while underneath the radar for a while, although the idea of him living in his pre-X-Men home was only a recent addition to it. Scott always tries to see things in a tactical way, which sometimes pushes his own emotions regarding things under the bus. That said, a lot of this story involves him taking on demons and ongoing issues from his childhood, as well as dealing with issues in the superhero community.
> 
> That said: Steve/Scott, weird pairing right, or not. I always found it really interesting how they developed a friendship right before Schism and their current relationship in the comics is one of betrayal and anger on both sides. I think there's a lot of interactions we were never shown leading up it which would be interesting to see. In regards to this story, along with AvX, Steve is pretty angry about precisely how Scott ended the Revolution. I won't go into any more details.


End file.
